Light of Day (20 page)

“Was that the only way he contacted them? Over the Internet?”

“That's all we know so far.”

“Can't you stop him? Hopewell, if you think he's going to frame the guy.”

“I didn't say he's going to frame anyone. But unless someone, including me, can produce the real killer, and I'm not that good, or lucky—look, Jack, the guy's still guilty of
something
. Most likely he'll get a decent enough lawyer and either take his chances in court, which I doubt, or plead out. In any case, he's going to wind up in prison and that
will be the end of him.”

“And Hopewell's going to make it
public
that Lamar was talking about sex over the Internet with this guy? He's going to put Lamar's parents through that?”

“Whatever it takes, I'm afraid.” Marty said most detectives would have thought twice before doing this kind of damage, to everyone involved. “And by the time Hopewell's finished, he'll have done some damage. But he'll spin it so it looks like he's put a psychotic killer away and saved the lives of young boys across the entire state of Indiana. And no one's going to give a damn about anything else. It's really depressing. And the capper is, there's not one damn thing anyone can do about it.”

It was the tail end of the lunch hour and the place was starting to empty out, faculty mostly. There was an ease with which they moved, vacation-paced and relaxed, carrying the scent of faded suntan oil, giving the room the feel of a new season, a new semester, even if the semester was still a week away. Jack knew them by face only, they were not the friends who had sat with him in late May and talked the soft talk, and yet these people, too, were a part of the living Danny, parents of children Danny had gone to school with, and they were seeing Jack for the first time since Danny's death—there would be no hiding naked and sweating in the attic now. They approached carefully, they spoke cautious words, they told Jack how sorry they were, in their bedside voices, their faces sympathetic and pitying. Only after Jack nodded his hello, after they saw that it was safe, did their voices loosen, their faces relax, before they returned to their routines, to the familiar environs, where the brick sidewalks led to the same offices and classrooms they had last semester, where their books were on call and waiting for a starting time, where their lives were where they'd left them, as though nothing had changed.

But something had changed. Jack had changed. Sitting with Marty was not only proof of that, it was the result of it, and the result of what had changed him. He was the father of the boy who had killed himself. The man of summer compulsions, who had passed his vacation days with good cops and bad, seen the lid lifted and knew the machinations of detectives and their plans. Who knew their setups and what kept
them awake at night. He was both an outsider and an insider, still in possession of all the academic credentials but no longer insulated by that community; privy to information Gilbert faculty couldn't know, part of another community. The Community of Parents of Dead Children, where the Coggins thanked God for their avenging detective, and a sad detective's conscience had him by the throat. It was a terrible thing to concede, this change.

Jack told this to Marty, after they'd left the restaurant and were walking down Main Street.

Marty only frowned and shook his head slowly, then he started back to work. But Jack stopped him. “Hey, Marty, which is more important, honesty or loyalty?”

“What?”

“That's what Danny asked me a week before he died.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him it was a good question.”

“Did he ever say which
he'd
pick?”

“No, he didn't.”

“It's a good question.”

 

Jack went back to his screening room, where there were only more films to watch. And later, he went to his office, where the air held on to the scent of summer and sunlight. There was a message on his voice mail from Lois saying that she and Tim were back from Rome and, if Jack was in the mood, would he come out to their place for cocktails. But there were no messages from the only voice he wanted to hear and he didn't need to call the house and leave a message of his own asking Danny if he and the guys were up for a catfish fry and the batting cages over by the fairgrounds. Or maybe just the two of them could have supper…

When he finished his work, he drove out to see Lois and Tim. They drank cocktails on the patio while Lois told Jack how glad she was to see him and gave him a strong hug and kissed him on the cheek. She said that he'd been on her mind all summer and she couldn't get “a proper read when we spoke on the phone.”

Jack said there wasn't much to read and Lois took her cue to wait until they were alone to find out what she really wanted to know.

And later still, Jack pulled up to his house that stood dark against a darker sky. There was no one inside waiting for him, he wasn't used to that yet, and he sat on the porch steps, remembering the nights when he came home to the sound of the piano, of the television, to the sound of Danny. He tried to think about the work he had to do, the films he had to screen, the notes and preparations. And only after he went inside and looked at Danny's picture on the night table, after he turned off the light, after he was in bed, unable to sleep, would he come to the discomforting realization that Danny wasn't receding further away from him, after all; he was receding from Danny.

L
ois sat at her desk, stockinged feet curled under her. There was a stack of unopened mail on her desk, more than a few textbooks were still in their shrink-wrap. The sunlight bent through the window and embraced the back of her head like an aureole. Now that she and Jack were alone he told her about his summer obsessions and the compulsions. He told her about the night at the Palomino. He told her all that he dared to admit.

Lois must have had questions, but she didn't ask them. She only listened, at times looking worried, at times concerned. She said, “I can understand why you didn't tell me any of this when I called this summer. I appreciate that you're telling me now.”

Jack kept on talking, impelled forward by the sheer volume of words. He told her about the day at the barbecue shack, he told her “Marty's been holding my hand all summer.” He did not talk about the murder of Lamar Coggin or Hopewell's investigation. He did not talk about the despair worn on the faces of sad detectives.

He walked over to the window where he could see the back of the Fine Arts building, where Anne's studio had been. He turned toward Lois and said, “I was thinking about Maggie last week.” Lois looked at him over the top of her glasses and said nothing. “It could have made a difference,” he told her. “For Danny. It could have made things easier for him.”

She said, “You can't think like that,” in the way she might have back when she was his teacher and he thought he would make movies and would need to know something about the actor's craft. Back when Lois spoke and he listened and learned. He wasn't the young film student now but he still listened when Lois spoke, even if he didn't learn but only inferred, and she didn't instruct but only proffered, suggesting what he should and shouldn't examine about his life. She was allowed to. She knew the play and the players. She spoke with authority.

Jack didn't tell her this, although he must have years ago. What he said, as he walked to the door, was, “We still have a lot to talk about.”

“Yes, we do.”

“If you have time tonight, we'll go out for a drink.”

“I'd like that.”

He went downstairs and out to the campus, where it was another morning humming with academic industry. The sleeping organism that had stirred in the night was fully awake and beginning to feed, converting human energy to the work of hands. But when he climbed the stairs to his office, Jack was not absorbed by the organism. He was not compelled to work. He was thinking that Lois might have been wrong about Maggie. He was thinking that he might have been wrong about Maggie as well.

 

They were sitting on the floor of the sunroom in Maggie's house. It was her favorite room, the rattan furniture, the tan venetian blinds tinting the sun like the light in a British movie. She pulled two pillows off the couch, they rested their heads against them. They were kissing and the music was turned down low.

Jack said she looked beautiful. She said Jack looked beautiful, too, and smiled.

Jack told her, “Your hair has summer in it.”

Maggie said she was glad to see summer end. “I missed you very much.” She said she was happy to be alone with him.

He said he was happy to be alone with her.

He wasn't afraid to tell her that. It was what she would say next that he was afraid of, and what would happen after she said it. He'd been afraid since before the night at Ambrosini's, which meant he'd been
afraid since the day they met and he went on seeing her anyway. He thought he could work around it. He never knew how afraid he really was until it finally happened.

If he'd kissed her, she wouldn't have been able to say what she said. If he talked about the class he'd taught at Stanford that summer, if he'd turned up the music or got up to make coffee. He might have tried to change the subject, tried to put off the conversation, but he did nothing. He knew what she wanted to talk about and he'd been dreading it for so long, and wanting it, wanting what she was about to offer, afraid he wouldn't turn it down, afraid that he would, and now he wanted it to be over with, and felt a calm relief when she said it.

“I don't want to do this again next summer. And when Danny gets back from camp next week and you two go away, I'd like to go with you. We can all go somewhere together.”

“You know how I feel about that.”

“Danny's used to me now.” She said this neither defiantly nor argumentatively. She was stating a fact.

“He's accepted you as my
friend
. I have lots of friends. They don't go away with us over the summer.”

“You're not thinking that I'm trying to interfere?”

Jack said no, he wasn't thinking that.

“And I'm certainly not trying to come between the two of you.”

Jack said he knew that, too.

“And it's not like I'm about to propose marriage,” she said lightly. “I just think that we've reached the point when it's okay to all go away together and not make a big deal about it. We've spent weekends together, so why not a week or so?”

“I won't let him get attached to someone and watch him get hurt all over again.” That wasn't all there was to say, it was all Jack was willing to tell her.

“You're not talking about Danny.”

“I'm talking about both of us.”

“But he
is
getting attached. So are you and so am I. So why shouldn't we—”

“He might be getting
too
attached.”

“What if he is? What if we
all
are? All the more reason to go away together.”

Jack tried to explain it to her. “I don't want to build up his expectations for something that isn't going to happen.” But that didn't explain it. “Or worry about something that
is
.” But that wasn't it, either.

Maggie put her arm around his shoulder. He didn't shrug it off. “There's no reason why we have to miss each other, that's all I'm saying.”

“The more time we spend together, the more time I'm going to want to spend with you.”

“I should hope so,” she said playfully.

“I can't do it.”

“Can't?”

“When Danny's older. When he's grown, there'll be time for a serious relationship, not before.”

“This already is a serious relationship.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I'm not sure I do. I'm not talking about playing mother to him.”

He remembered thinking how calmly she said this, how her voice lacked even the slightest edge of desperation. How it made him think: The absence of anything, some element, creates the presence of something else. And how he chose not to hear the certainty of affection that was in her voice.

She said, “You know I'd never tell you how to bring him up.”

“I know.”

“And you know this isn't about trying to replace his mother.”

“I know that, too.”

“So what is it?”

“I won't set him up for more disappointment.”

“I'm not going to disappoint him. Or you.”

“It might not start out that way, but you never know what will happen over time.”

She shook her head. “Come on, Jack. That's not what this is about.”

He leaned back and took a deep breath. “I'm not going to calibrate his life. I'm not going to rush him through his childhood. And I won't do that to you, either.”

“Do what to me?”

“Make you wait until Danny's an adult.”

“That's something I can decide for myself, don't you think? Besides, that's not what I'm asking you to do.” She stood up and straightened the blinds, keeping her back to him. “You're circling the wagons. There's something you don't want to tell me. Or is it that you don't know quite how?”

“I'm doing what I think is right for Danny.”

“I never said you weren't. But does that include depriving yourself of a relationship?”

“You're exaggerating things.”

“I might be
understating
them.” She turned around. “I'm willing to bet this isn't the first time you've had this conversation with a woman you were seeing.” When Jack said nothing, Maggie only smiled and nodded her head. “Don't think I'm trying to make a case for myself. Trying to talk you into anything. You can walk away, I can walk away, and we'll never see each other again. We'll miss each other like crazy, but we'll live.” The music stopped and at the same time Maggie stopped speaking, as though she wanted the silence to hang there; as though that was the sound of the emptiness Jack was proposing and she wanted him to get a good dose of it. He didn't break the silence. He only waited for her to talk him out of it. That's what he wanted. He didn't want to leave her and he didn't know how to stay. And what if he'd said that, if he'd said, “I'm the one who's getting too attached”?

If he'd said, “You see, I've made this deal with myself. It's about self-deprivation and protecting Danny and it's the only way I know how to hold my life together and keep Danny safe, but there's got to be a way to work with it.” It would have told her what she wanted to know. If he'd said, “Once I had a wife and a baby and we lived in a loft on Crosby Street and I lost that…” If he'd said, “You see, there's Anne…” they might have come up with an answer. It was something Maggie would have understood. But if he could have said that, he wouldn't have needed the deal.

Maggie let the silence hang there while she looked out the window. The sunlight lay frozen on the floor.

Jack stared at the back of her head, at the sleek cut of her hair, at the way her yellow sweater flared over her hips. He could smell her perfume.

Maggie walked back to him and sat down. She drew herself close to him and softly traced her finger along his cheek, the way she had when they danced at Ambrosini's and when they sat in the corner booth listening to jazz.

When she broke the silence, she asked, “Have you ever tried? Since your divorce, I mean.”

“You know I've dated—”

“I'm talking about a relationship.”

He didn't answer.

“You're afraid of something. Isn't that what this is really all about?”

He didn't answer that, either. “I've told you what it's about.”

“No. You've been saying what you don't want and won't allow, but what
will
you allow?”

“I'm going to stop seeing you.”

He expected her to pull away from him, but she didn't. “That's ridiculous,” and she leaned into his body.

“Maybe it is, but that's the only way to resolve this.”

He considered what he was doing, what he was about to do, without any pretense of rightness. It was easy to ponder the future beyond his action, to know that only a few more minutes remained and he would never see Maggie again and he would always regret this day and his decision, to consider what he was doing in the name of self-deprivation. Or was it Danny who was being deprived, and of what, exactly? A mother? A second chance at childhood? Did he really believe that he was keeping Danny safe from more disappointment and sadness? He might have wondered what he was protecting and who.

He might have wondered if all he had to do was tell Maggie, “Okay, let's give it a try.” Or, “Okay, let's give it a little more time.” Or he could have said, “It isn't that I don't know what I'm doing, what I'm giving up, what I'm losing. But I don't know what else to do.”

All he did was wait, choking on the things he did not permit himself to say.

Maggie said, “It's not the only way,” flatly, her hand touching the back of his neck where it's always soft and warm.

“And what if we keep seeing each other?” Jack answered. “We'll only have this discussion again, a week from now, a month. It will always be there.”

“So? We'll eventually come to terms with it, or work through it.”

“I don't think that's possible.”

“So you're going to walk out on it. That's foolish.”

“I have no choice.”

“
No
choice? That's not a reason.” She shifted a little and looked at him. He felt her breath on his face. “Tell me,” she said, softly. “Tell me what you're afraid of.”

He paused before he answered, “Do the math.”

“But I'm not Anne.”

“Everyone is Anne,” he explained.

 

He thought: Everyone is Anne. And no one is Anne. He thought about Anne, who would curl up in the crook of his arm and breathe softly and pull his face to hers. How her skin smelled so terribly exciting. How she said, “Can we always be like this? Loving each other and living our lives together?”

He thought about how much he loved her when they were still undergraduates at Gilbert College and when he was the young professor at NYU and Anne was rushing headlong through Cultureburg.

He thought about how much he loved her when the three of them spent the summer in the country house in Loubressac. Anne was working against time, preparing to mount her second show. Jack was writing his next book. Danny was four months old and slept on the pallet Anne had made for him. She said, “He sleeps through the night and makes these little insect noises in his sleep, and when he wakes up and sees us, it's like this ecstatic recognition: ‘It's
you. Yay,
it's
you
.'” She managed not to make this sound precious. She said, “He really is the best little baby,” and lay with her head on Jack's chest breathing with his breathing, playing with Danny's hands, which were unimaginably small and awesome for their fragility, while Danny, tucked between his mother
and father and not making those little insect noises at the moment, issued a soft purring sound.

“He has the most lovely colored eyes,” Anne said. She placed her index finger on Danny's face and drew a tiny circle along his cheek. “He's quite lovely. Quite the little charm boy. Just like his father.” She turned her face to Jack. “We're doing all right with him, especially now that he's emerging from his larval stage?” And she said a second time, nodding her head firmly, “We're doing all right, aren't we, Jack?”